Page 10: The ark

In my book, I have the ark page and tee pee page side by side. It works out well this way since the little Mr. and Mrs. Noah figurines can be tucked away in the tee pee or ark (depending on if they've made it safe to the promise land or they are still afloat!).

Page 10: The Ark
Items needed: Brown felt for boat and boat roof, blue felt for windows and water, felts (in any colors) for ark house and door and "ARK" letters, blue ric rac for ocean tip. One small zipper (at least 6" long- can cut zipper down if you can't find a short enough zipper- they often don't sell them short these days). The items to put inside the ark are optional: animal finger puppets from Ikea, Go-fish cards with animals on them (cut down and used like memory game cards), Noah and his wife plastic figurines (I got mine at the dollar store, I've also seen them sold at Allen's grocery store in their dollar aisle).

Ikea Finger Puppets

Animal Go Fish cards made into memory cards

Noah and his wife plastic figurines

Teaches: zippering, matching (memory game), imaginative play.

Cut out the following pieces out of felt: Brown big boat bottom (mine measured approximately 8" wide, 5" tall), 1 brown roof, rectangle for boat house (mine measured 4" wide by 2" tall), a small rectangle for boat door, the letters A, R, & K, a 6" zipper (or longer/shorter depending on your ark size), big blue ark windows (4), small blue ark windows (2), a rectangle in blue/green to make the water piece at bottom (mine measured 9.5" wide x 1.5 inches tall- will depend on how big your muslin page is), and 9.5" of blue ric-rac to make the waves.

Directions:

First, you are going to want to sew the zipper on to the ark. I'm no spectacular zipper-sewer, so my directions will be basic. You can google it, but most of the instructions are quite advanced and for hidden zippers like on the back of a skirt or something. Here's what I did to sew in the zipper: place the closed zipper on the underside of the boat, where you want it to be. Make sure to position the zipper about .25" from the top and be sure to leave about 1" on the sides between the sides of the arc and the beginning/ending parts of the zipper. You can pin the zipper in place if you want. If you've used a zipper that has been cut down, you are going to want to make sure to reinforce the stitches at the end of the zipper over and over so the zipper doesn't fall apart. To sew the zipper to the felt, just sew around it (by sewing on the back side of the felt, so the zipper is on top of the back of the felt, but the zipper is wrong side up), making a continuous rectangle (don't worry, your zipper will come out and play eventually!). Make sure to reinforce the stitches well since this will get tugged on a lot. Then you are going to cut the slit from the front where the zipper is hiding. I started my slit by using a seam ripper and then cut the rest of the slit with a pair of scissors. You'll want to cut your slit slightly smaller than the length of your zipper so the ending is hidden under the felt (my slit was about 6" long). Now your zipper should be peeking out. Unzip/zip it a few times to make sure it works. Phew! Did that work? Zippers are hard to explain.

Secondly, you are going to want to sew on the A R K letters onto the boat bottom of the ark and the 4 big blue windows. Next, sew your little windows and door onto the arc house. Place the arc roof, arc house and ark boat bottom onto the muslin page in the positions your prefer. Sew everything in place by going around their borders (you might want to leave a teeny-weeny slot unsewn if you are going to put a little flag in there like I did- see last directions below). You are also going to want to make sure to sew the horizontal borders in between the ark bottom, the ark house and the roof (this will make the felt lay flatter on the page and not come up when you use the zipper).

Next, sew on the water at the bottom. I just positioned the blue felt at the bottom of the page and made it so it went all the way to the ends/bottom of the muslin (when the page is finally sewn together with another page, it will all look nice and finished). Also, it was touching the base of the ark (so the ark looks like it is on top of the water).

Then sew the ric rac atop the blue water so it goes on top of the ark, to create a wave affect.

The last thing I did (and this is totally optional) was I made a little narrow slit/slot for the plastic flag to be placed in in front of the boat. This plastic flag says "Noah's Ark" and was part of another Noah figurine set I got at the dollar store. To do this, just sew a little thin slit down (about 2.5")and then back up right at the end of the boat. Make it snug for the flag as the felt will eventually stretch. Here's a picture for helps: Tada! You should be finished! This is a really fun page. Probably my second most played with page in my book, so definitely a favorite! And if you really want the Noah/wife figurines but can't find them at your local dollar store or Allen's grocery store, you can email me (I've picked up a few extra- however I don't recommend this route because you are going to end up paying for shipping and handling, which will make this "dollar toy" much more expensive- make sure to look around at your local dollar stores first!).

And here's my mother's 35 year old ark (Complete with a little felt Noah!) that inspired my ark:
Stay tuned for Mr. & Mrs. Noah's tee pee!